But today, Alex found herself wrestling with the rather bratty thought that living in Greece had numbed her to the splendor of Mediterranean ruins. And besides, the tour, which she’d signed up for well before the possibility of spending the day with Danial became reality, was now blocking her from the free-flowing, endless conversation she was craving. Without thinking, she pulled her phone from her bag to check how much time was left. A notification from her mother took up the screen, asking when she was going to FaceTime them so they could see the sights, too.

“On our phone again? This simply can’t be the Alex who graduated summa cum laude,” Danial whispered from just behind her. For his part, he had been taking a hearty interest in the tour, asking plenty of follow-up questions and demonstrating his knowledge of regional history.

Their guide flicked his eyes over at the two of them, not breaking his anecdote about the theatrical tastes of ancient Greek soldiers.

“This absolutely can be,” she whispered back, slipping her phone into her purse. “I’ve just seen a lot of Greek ruins in my time.”

“That’s like saying you’ve seen a lot of stars, Alex. There are always more to see.”

He picked up his pace slightly to walk beside her as their group crossed the main stage. The guide explained the many spectacles that took place in the theater’s heyday, and Alex made a point of listening performatively, craning her neck toward him as he spoke.

Danial caught her from the corner of his eye, laughing and shaking his head.

The tour guide continued on about Greek history in Sicily as she half-listened, now mostly electrified by the feeling of Danial’s hand at the small of her back, leading her forward. There was so much to love about him, so much to be impressed by. Even the ride up on the cable car had been a crash course on his life for the past ten years, which inevitably included the dizzying superlatives of his family back in Los Angeles. She vaguely remembered details of his cousins from college, but the updates came fast and furious once the wall between them had come down: this one was finishing up her residency in orthopedic surgery at UCLA, that one was passing the California bar, still another was joining an ascendent tech startup just before their series B. The warmth, and slight envy, she always felt at his expansive, brilliant family rose up again in her chest with a familiar immediacy.